I've been able to precisely characterize the shape as observed, connect its shape to the hardware features of the missile's "warhead bus", and
suggest why such observations in past decades [before the tests were officially acknowledged by Moscow] would have been extremely valuable data for
analysis by the CIA and DIA in the US, in their monitoring of missile development. They would have been very eager to collect all 'UFO reports' from
those regions, for good reasons -- they knew they weren't 'real' alien ships, just Soviet vehicles.

The Topol's "warhead bus" coasts for about two minutes after the shutdown of the third stage, then fires posigrade for about 45 to 55 seconds, and
then shuts down. Immediately after shutdown the single thermonuclear weapon is jettisoned and fires spin-up motors to give it a high rotation rate
along its long axis -- this creates a brief spiral that merges into an expanding ring that quickly dissipates. Photos and videos from the ground, and
a hundred photos from on board the ISS, show this process in detail.

UFO reports have been associated with recent tests, and the discussions and archives here at ATS have been terrific resources.

BUT -- I'm having one problem I'd like to ask help with.

FIVE tests with the specific Topol missile have occurred this century, on the Kapustin Yar to Sary Shagan route. Three of the last four resulted in
mass public signtings, often interpreted as UFOs.

But I can find no discussion of the first of those tests, in November 2005. Am i looking in the wrong indexing?

Here are the five [there are a few other missiles of different type also launched but they don't have the 'warhead bus']:

My theory is that the 1st and 3rd events occurred at time-of-day when the exhaust plume was NOT sunlit, as it was on flights 2,4,and 5. Flight 1 & 3
would have been too late in the day, long after local sunset when even high-flying satellites were not sunlit. Any eyewitness reports of either of
these launches would upset this theory.

Can anybody locate any UFO or similar reports associated with the November 1, 2005, launch? Thanks!

I'm aware of at least one observation from France at this exact date, that occurred between 6:25 and 6:45pm local hour.

A "Procès-verbal" of the French "Gendarmerie" was written the next day, with a description of the object, a bright white sphere with a
yellow halo around it and two red dots on each side of this sphere.

I'm friends with an Israeli Russian translator - I'll have him look around the RuNet and see if he can't find anything that fits. Strategic nuclear
weapons are another interest of mine, so I'm pretty eager to see what we can find.

The three launches for which we have EXTENSIVE ground observation reports had sun elevation angles of -5, -6, and +5 degrees -- meaning even for the
-6 deg case, a rocket emerges up into sunlight about 30 km up, which is what some videotapes showed.

The one launch I failed to find any reports had a sun angle of -62 degrees, which computes to a required altitude of ~ 2000 miles before exiting
earth's shdow -- and the missile never got that high, so it should be no surprise it left no visible contrail.

The 'unknown' case is the first, and ITS sun elevation angle of -44 degrees corresponds to an altitude needed to exit Earth shadow of about 1600
km.

I've never seen any indication that any of the missiles even reached 1000 km up on their flight paths.

So if this theory is correct -- the plumes were visible because they were sunlit -- then the visibility of 2, 4, and 5, and the invisibility of 3, are
all consistent. Case 1 is the make-or-break. If we find any credible reports or videos, some other explanation will be needed. Failing that, my
hypothesis is strenghthened.

There were two other non-Topol launches from KY to SS in this same period, an old-model liquid-fuelled K65M-R on April 22,2006, at 1540 GMT, and a
new-model ICBM prototype ['Avangard'] on October 24, 2012, and I'm still working on getting the launch time of that.

However, if the April 22, 2006 launch carried a similar warhead test [it was an entirely different missile], it might also have been visible from way
downrange -- Omsk area, say, or Kazakhstan -- where the sky would have just gotten dark enough. That's worth a search too.

Chances are the first test flight wouldn't have done anything with the warhead. They would have just launched and flown to prove that the missile
works. You usually do at least one to two tests without a warhead release, as a proof of missile operation.

Chances are the first test flight wouldn't have done anything with the warhead. They would have just launched and flown to prove that the missile
works. You usually do at least one to two tests without a warhead release, as a proof of missile operation.

Alternatively the spin up of the bus could have failed - or the bus was replaced with a dummy payload for the 2005 flights. Do they use the same bus
on the Bulava? I know that one has had a pretty problematic flight testing, so maybe we're looking at quality control issues with the warhead bus.
They seem to be putting a lot of effort towards MARV development and penaids...pretty demanding stuff if you have quality control problems.

JimOberg - I checked with my friend but he didn't know anything right off the bat. I'll let you know if I hear anything relevant from him.

Do we
get the same spiral effects with Minuteman or Trident bus motors?

My bet is on at least the first flight having ballast on it. You have to walk before you can run, and releasing a warhead on the first flight is
trying to run before you have crawled.

Thats what I've been thinking. Its odd that the spiral effect doesn't seem to have occurred in the West as the result of flight testing... Maybe
they've doped the solid rocket motors with sodium or something to increase visibility from the ground?

This missile is supposed to have advanced capabilities to avoid ground based defenses, as well as being able to steer itself in the terminal phase of
flight. That's at least part of the spiraling. Until recently there wasn't really a need to avoid defenses, but they've been improving in the
last few years.

This missile is supposed to have advanced capabilities to avoid ground based defenses, as well as being able to steer itself in the terminal phase of
flight. That's at least part of the spiraling. Until recently there wasn't really a need to avoid defenses, but they've been improving in the
last few years.

Yeah, unfortunately a lot of the MARV stuff isn't available for public consumption. From the glimpses I've gotten, the Mk. 500 for example, there is
a lot of stuff that can be done to defeat ABM systems. I know hypersonic TERCOM was one thing they were seriously hoping to pull off back in the day.
An exaggerated spin-up would be useful for deploying penaids from the bus too...

The cloud release mechanism they were hoping to test out with Polyus also comes to mind. If they wanted to defeat DEW coverage - this could be a
component of that.

These tests were far from the first Topol launches, which usually went out of Plesetsk [sometimes Baykonur] all the way to Kamchatka, sometimes
farther out into mid-Pacific. These Kapustin Yar tests involved developing new countermeasures to missile defense systems.

The reason I think this is a UFO topic is that these activities create a category of apparitions not widely recognized as 'UFO stimuli', and precise
characterization of their visual properties can really help calibrate descriptive accounts from witnesses. It also may cast light into shadowy
interests in foreign UFO reports from US intelligence agencies.

A lot of mid-Atlantic US SLBM missile tests over the decades were also creating such apparitions, witnessed from islands, ships, and planes -- a
field of investigation still barely scratched.

All the factors in these Topol sightings -- angular size and motion, illumination conditions, imaging capabilities, witness misinterpretations -- are
important factors in other subsets of ufology. I hope this helps. These comments are terrific.

JimOberg
These tests were far from the first Topol launches, which usually went out of Plesetsk [sometimes Baykonur] all the way to Kamchatka, sometimes
farther out into mid-Pacific. These Kapustin Yar tests involved developing new countermeasures to missile defense systems.

The reason I think this is a UFO topic is that these activities create a category of apparitions not widely recognized as 'UFO stimuli', and precise
characterization of their visual properties can really help calibrate descriptive accounts from witnesses. It also may cast light into shadowy
interests in foreign UFO reports from US intelligence agencies.

A lot of mid-Atlantic US SLBM missile tests over the decades were also creating such apparitions, witnessed from islands, ships, and planes -- a
field of investigation still barely scratched.

All the factors in these Topol sightings -- angular size and motion, illumination conditions, imaging capabilities, witness misinterpretations -- are
important factors in other subsets of ufology. I hope this helps. These comments are terrific.

Are there any spectrographic studies of the spirals available to the public? It would be interesting to see if my doping idea has any basis to it, or
if there was an attempt to replicate the Polyus barium cloud experiment...

A light appeared that grew into an eastwards –moving horizontally-pointed arrowhead shaped cloud that expanded over about one minute, followed by
the apex emitting a fast-spinning spiral cloud that quickly expanded and faded

The cloud seemed to have marked irregularities in shape that suggested unusual shadowing of the thruster plume

What followed was the best documented long-lived thruster plume EVER. Because:

Wider and wider availability of video cameras including dashcams that captured imagery continuously so as to observe initial appearance

Higher quality optics that allowed post-processing to bring out features that had faded too dim for human eye detection

On October 10, the moon was in the field of view of cameras observing the plume from the north, providing angular scale and celestial sphere reference
point for the developing shape and motion of the plume

Accidental coincidence of scheduled aurora borealis observation from aboard International Space Station

Availability of cupola module on ISS that provides essentially full visibility of entire Earth horizon and surface

High quality ISS cameras that captured readable star images that provided precise look angles, along with known time-tagged positions of ISS

Here are some draft talking points about the October 10 missile event and the lessons it has for UFO studies:

Best-documented plume EVER

Wider and wider availability of video cameras including dashcams that captured imagery continuously so as to observe initial appearance
Higher quality optics that allowed post-processing and brightening to bring out features that had faded too dim for human eye detection
On October 10, the moon was in the field of view of cameras observing the plume from the north, providing angular scale and celestial sphere reference
point for the developing shape and motion of the plume
Accidental coincidence of scheduled aurora borealis observation from aboard International Space Station led to acquisition of unique images
Availability of cupola module on ISS that provides essentially full visibility of entire Earth horizon and surface – otherwise too far off to side
to see
High quality ISS cameras that captured readable star images that provided precise look angles, along with known time-tagged positions of ISS

What it looked like:Phase 1 – “Fan”Timed duration of 55 seconds

Fan-shaped light, bright at front end, spreading and fading, and with sharp boundary at trailing end
Appeared first as point of bright light that then extruded fan continuously for about a minute while moving in straight horizontal direction across
most of the sky
Irregularities in fan included black circle in rear center, and apparent deep notches at rear of aft skirt, possibly four of them evenly spaced around
circumference
At end of activity, leading section shows sharp boundary while sides continue to expand and fade into invisibility

What it looked like:Phase 2 – “Spiral”Time approx 5-10 seconds

Leading point brightness appears to “fuzzy out”
Rapidly rotating spiral makes several turns, laying down curved lines centered at former peak of the fan
Expanding spiral arms merge into expanding circle
Head of fan drops behind spiral leaving a growing gap, while tip of fan becomes blunt and widens
Circle becomes ‘knotty’ and segmented
Circle fades more quickly than receding fan remnants

Kapustin Yar has been military missile test range since 1947 and was early target of US and British aerial reconnaissance
Sary Shagan impact zone on Lake Balkhash in Kazakhstan was developed as anti-missile test base – radars, cameras, and weapons – since early
1960s.
Two bases are approx 2000 kilometers apart
Hundreds of short-range missile launches point to point
Only known live-fire nuclear warhead launch
Tested both Russian defenses against foreign missiles AND Russian penetration technologies against foreign defenses
Use of Topol ICBM for testing began in 2005
Most launches appear timed for near-sunset to provide backlighting of plume as viewed from Sary Shagan
Directly overhead Baykonur launch site, tracking infrastructure
IRBM-range testing of ICBMs is forbidden by treaty

JimOberg
Here are some draft talking points about the October 10 missile event and the lessons it has for UFO studies:
...
Consult more closely with US missile specialists in hypothesizing design of short-range ICBM profile

Are they retooling their arsenal towards a future Sino-Russian confrontation or something?

This content community relies on user-generated content from our member contributors. The opinions of our members are not those of site ownership who maintains strict editorial agnosticism and simply provides a collaborative venue for free expression.